Janet Laminack: Here’s some good news and bad news concerning flowers

The Best
in Show this year for the Denton County Fruit, Flower, Vegetable and Herb Show
was the cardoon. I could make up anything at this point and you’d believe me as
to what a cardoon is, since not many people are familiar with it.

Even
after looking at the specimen, the officials weren’t sure if it belonged with
vegetables or flowers at the show. The cardoon is kind of an ornamental
artichoke, which can be eaten when it is young. Since it is typically
cultivated as an ornamental for its thistle-like flower, it was ultimately
placed in the flower category in which it won Grand Champion in the youth
division (grown by Emma and Lauren Martin).

The
cardoon in my backyard has been one of my favorite plants for a few years now.
It is a perennial with large, silver foliage that grows most of the winter. It
is a bit of a weird and wild plant, maybe even dangerous looking.

I enjoy
the drama of watching it grow larger all winter while nothing else is making
much movement. It begins to spike in height in late spring. Often, it’s the
tallest thing in my yard, just peeking over my 6-foot fence.

In June,
I’m rewarded with flowers that are a gorgeous blue-purple (but very macho and
tough). After the blooms, the plant usually turns brown quickly and gets
invaded by all kinds of insects. Chop it back and try not to dwell on it:
people still have children and nobody’s a huge fan of changing diapers, right?
The cardoon will come back from the roots later in the summer or fall and the
performance begins anew.

Now for
some bad news. We have a deadly pest of roses showing up in our area. Rose
rosette has been reported in the Dallas-Fort Worth area as early as the mid
1990s, but in the last three years we have seen a rise in the number of cases.

One of
the most noticeable symptoms is the “witches broom,” which refers to the bunchy
growth of leaves at the end of a stem. The shrub will have a pom-pom look of
stunted growth. Hearing about a disease affecting the quintessential flower is
bad enough, but I really hate to say that there is not an effective control
yet, and we aren’t 100 percent sure about how the disease is spreading. We know
that rose rosette is a virus and that it can be spread by a mite.

If you
think you have an infected rose, our recommendation is to remove it immediately
and put it in the garbage. If you have adjacent roses, treatment with a
miticide might help reduce the likelihood of the disease moving into the plant
(if it is not already infected.) Monitor your roses closely to ensure they are
not developing symptoms.

If you
have questions or concerns about this disease, call our Master Gardener Help
Desk at 940-349-892 or e-mail master.gardener@dentoncounty.com.

The city
of Lewisville will present a free class on “Using Stone and Hardscapes in Your
Yard,” from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. Tuesday. Conserving water is much easier when you
use elements that look great without needing water, such as stone and other
hardscapes.

JANET LAMINACK is the horticulture county
extension agent with the Texas A&M AgriLife Extension. She can be reached
at 940-349-2883. Her e-mail address is jelaminack@ag.tamu.edu.

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